Page 642 - swanns-way

death-watch in the wall, or if she had seen a cat at midnight,
or if the furniture had creaked. Oh yes! she’s a most reli-
gious lady, she is!’ I was so madly in love with Gilberte that
if, on our way, I caught sight of their old butler taking the
dog out, my emotion would bring me to a standstill, I would
fasten on his white whiskers eyes that melted with passion.
And Françoise would rouse me with: ‘What’s wrong with
you now, child?’ and we would continue on our way until we
reached their gate, where a porter, different from every oth-
er porter in the world, and saturated, even to the braid on
his livery, with the same melancholy charm that I had felt to
be latent in the name of Gilberte, looked at me as though he
knew that I was one of those whose natural unworthiness
would for ever prevent them from penetrating into the mys-
teries of the life inside, which it was his duty to guard, and
over which the ground-floor windows appeared conscious
of being protectingly closed, with far less resemblance, be-
tween the nobly sweeping arches of their muslin curtains,
to any other windows in the world than to Gilberte’s glanc-
ing eyes. On other days we would go along the boulevards,
and I would post myself at the corner of the Rue Duphot; I
had heard that Swann was often to be seen passing there,
on his way to the dentist’s; and my imagination so far dif-
ferentiated Gilberte’s father from the rest of humanity, his
presence in the midst of a crowd of real people introduced
among them so miraculous an element, that even before we
reached the Madeleine I would be trembling with emotion
at the thought that I was approaching a street from which
that supernatural apparition might at any moment burst

642 Swann’s Way